Two-photon exchange in electron-trinucleon elastic scattering

TL;DR

This paper investigates two-photon exchange effects in elastic electron scattering off trinucleon systems 3He and 3H, revealing that TPE amplitudes are significantly larger in 3He compared to electron-proton scattering.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed calculation of all three TPE amplitudes for electron 3He elastic scattering using semirelativistic wave functions from Paris and CD-Bonn potentials.

Findings

TPE amplitudes are several times larger in 3He than in electron-proton scattering.

The model covers a wide kinematical domain relevant to existing experiments.

All three generalized form factors for 3He scattering are computed.

Abstract

We discuss two-photon exchange (TPE) in elastic electron scattering off the trinucleon systems, 3He and 3H. The calculations are done in the semirelativistic approximation with the trinucleon wave functions obtained with the Paris and CD-Bonn nucleon-nucleon potentials. An applicability area of the model is wide enough and includes the main part of kinematical domain where experimental data exist. All three TPE amplitudes (generalized form factors) for electron 3He elastic scattering are calculated. We find that the TPE amplitudes are few times more significant in the scattring of electrons off 3He then in the electron proton scattering.